


Cakes and Cards

by Bardic_Feline



Category: Left 4 Dead 2, Respect A Woman
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Genderswap, Pre-infection, Zarla OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:05:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bardic_Feline/pseuds/Bardic_Feline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Smoker's birthday, but she really does not want to treat it as anything but a normal day, as she hasn't had a real reason to celebrate this particular anniversary for a while now.  But maybe this year will be different?</p>
<p>(Featuring OCs created by Zarla, set pre-infection, and really has nothing to do with the L4D timeline proper.  This is SHAMELESS FLUFF.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cakes and Cards

Smoker, as a rule, did not celebrate her own birthday. So she’d made it through yet another complete circumnavigation of a giant ball of flaming gas on a giant chunk of rapidly spinning rock. Whoop-de-@#$@-doo. No reason to celebrate that, it’s not as if that was any big accomplishment. As far as she was concerned, you might as well be praising her for being able to wade across a swimming pool and avoid drowning. In fact, she’d just as soon not think about the whole business entirely, and just treat it like another day; thus far, she’d been unsuccessful in communicating this idea to other people.*

 

And that is why she hated it when he birthday landed on a workday. Work was a pain in the tuckus as it was without adding a reason for forced joviality in her colleagues. Nor did she ever want to go to the monthly office birthday party**, not for all the crappy supermarket sheet cakes topped with lard icing in the world.

 

So it felt almost inevitable that her actual birthday would land on the same day as the office party this year. Jeezum Crow, what a pain.

 

One small blessing was that it wasn’t really MUCH of a party…just everybody on their floor gathering in the largest break room, singing the birthday song, and having a slice of crappy cake about an hour or so before normal closing time.*** It wasn’t terribly long, and it was generally easy to slip away quickly. Heck, most months, she managed to get away without showing up at all…

 

No such luck this time.

 

“Hey, it really is your birthday today, isn’t it? Happy Birthday.”

 

Oh boy. It was that strange girl again. Smoker had never gotten around to learning the kid’s name, but the office nickname for her was ‘Mousey’, which had always struck the tall woman as an astonishingly appropriate moniker for this one. She certainly put her in mind of something small, nervous, and squeaky. Heck, she’d once seen the kid skitter…there was no other word for it, she actually skittered!...around a corner when someone**** startled her. 

 

And now the mousey little thing was just standing there, looking at her in a way that managed to be nervous but expectant all at the same time. Deciding that she must be waiting for a response, Smoker nodded and muttered a curt thank you. 

 

“Oh, you are very welcome, of course!” said the girl in a slightly rushed way. (Jeeeze…was this kid ever NOT nervous?) “And I don’t know if you…ummm…noticed the memo…but we’re about to cut the cake? Over in the break room.”

 

Another expectant pause. Smoker fought back the urge to say “So what?”, and instead just said “Ahh…well, you should…go get some cake then.”

 

“Umm, but, don’t you…you know…want some, too?”

 

Smoker looked up from her computer screen again, and gave the kid an odd look. For some reason, this only prompted the human mouse to keep on squeaking.

 

“I mean…since it is…you know…your month for all this, so it should be your favorite kind…and…ummm…you did tell them what kind of cake you like, didn’t you?”

 

She most certainly had not. She knew, in theory, that the birthday people of the month were supposed to have a say in the flavor and kind of baked good to be ordered…that a message was supposed to be sent around to the appropriate people to find out pastry preference.

 

In practice, the Birthday committee forgot to get her a birthday card most years, and never remembered to ask if she even LIKED cake. So every year on this month, the cake was always Italian Cream cake, from that place that always used too much almond extract, and if the texture was anything to go by, always cut its butter cream with liberal amounts of Crisco. 

 

It was Sparkles the Marvelous Pink Puppy’s favorite item from her favorite bakery. And she was the only person who shared a birth month with Smoker who worked here. Jeezum Effing Crow.

 

Seeing Smoker’s expression, Mousey stuttered, but rallied on. “Ahh, ah, well, either way, though, it is your birthday, and it’s always nice to get cake on your birthday, don’t you think? And celebrate with…other people?”

 

“Seriously, what are you going on about?” Said Smoker with a sigh, giving up pretending to work.

 

“I, oh, ummm, just, well, uhh, wanted to know if, maybe, I mean, if you wanted to, if you wanted to walk over to the break room with me so we could get some…cake…?” There was a slight hesitation at the end, like she wanted to add something else to this might-as-well-call-it-an-invitation, but had once again lost her mousey little nerve. 

 

Smoker felt no need to give her any encouragement. But she was beginning to realize, as mouse-like as this silly little thing was, Mousey was not going to walk away until she at LEAST got Smoker to agree to joining her on the journey to craptastic cake and insincere singing. She sighed deeply, and tabbed out of her work document. “Fine. Let’s go.”

 

The kid’s face just lit up. Smoker couldn’t even begin to imagine why.

 

 

* _Not that she ever tried any strategy besides silently glaring at potential well-wishers until they got uncomfortable and left._

 

** _Like most large cubical farm type offices, Smoker’s workplace went in for the philosophy that it would make the employees feel less dehumanized if they were given a party of sorts to celebrate the anniversary of their arrival on the earth’s surface. And like any true bureaucracy, they did not want to spend the cash needed for everybody to get there own cake and a few balloons every year. Which is why the second or third Friday of every month was Birthday Celebration Day for EVERYONE in the office who happened to be born in that month._

 

*** _Gift giving was not…NOT allowed at these things, but it was not required either, and this was fine by her because she had yet to either give one to anyone who worked her, much less receive one. The last real present she’d remembered getting from anyone had been from Juan, and it had included a gift certificate to a beauty parlor. ___

_Needless to say that words were exchanged over the implications of that particular gift._

 

 

**** _Griffin_

.............................................................................................................

It had gone about as well as Smoker expected. Awkward off-key singing, and badly seasoned cake that was texturally closer to heavy duty packing foam than anything. She had a slice because the Mouse looked like she would burst into tears if she didn’t; she’d tossed most of it out when no one was looking. Her mouth still tasted oddly slick from that gorram icing.

 

The highlight had been when Griffin (who else) had very loudly made some crack about Smoker not looking anywhere NEAR her actual age. Sparkles, who was seated at a table behind a small stack of little presents from numerous suck-ups, tittered loudly at this. As if the idiot muscle head had said something that could be construed in any way as humorous. Smoker just glared at him, and took another sip of soda, trying to wash the taste of bad cake out of her mouth.

 

She once again got no card. Not that she cared.

 

So, all, in all, it was a crabbier than normal Smoker who walked through the door of her apartment later that evening. Even before she flicked the lights on, she felt the slight draft, and frowned…did she leave a window open? But before this realization could fully sink in and crystalize as actual alarm, she saw the following items on her kitchen table: two boxes, the larger one the same white cardboard she associated with various pastry shops (only this one had a lop-side bow on it), the smaller wrapped clumsily in a page saved from the Sunday comic section. Leaning against the smaller box, an envelope apparently addressed to her. (At least, she assumed it was meant for her, as it was signed “To the Weirdo Chain Smoking Hermit Lady”.) And, to complete the image, a helium balloon was tied to the lopsided bow; it was oval, it was shiny and metallic and black…it had a skeleton in a robe on it, holding a scythe in one hand, and a cupcake with a candle in the other. It was captioned with the words “Relax, I’m just here for the Cake.”

 

Smoker blinked, and dropped her stuff next to the door, before stepping over to the table. Closer inspection revealed that the larger box held a cake; Black Forrest Gateaue, from the wonderful little hole in the wall bakery a few blocks from her apartment. She would recognize one of their cakes anywhere.

 

The envelope proved to hold a birthday card, complete with punny little caption, and (of course) a cartoon kitty cat. She felt her lip twitch, almost involuntarily, into the ghost of a smile. Hand written on the inside of the card, in a somewhat scrawled handwriting:

 

_“Hey, Congrats on yet another successful circumnavigation of that big bright thing that comes out during the day! (Or, as those of us who don’t mope around inside all day like weirdo hermits call it, “The Sun.” I know, I know, it’s been so many years since the last time you’ve seen it properly. Trust me…it is still a thing that exists.)_

_Don’t worry, I didn’t even try to bake anything. Didn’t feel like giving you food poisoning was the best way to celebrate your continued aging. I’ve heard good things about this bakery, though…and I think I remember you saying you like this kind? (If not, we can always go out and grab something else later. Your call.)_

_So, anyway, It gotcha a little something. It’s not much, but I figured you might like them._

_**-H.** _

 

P.S. Sorry about the craptastic packaging, couldn’t find a wrapping paper that gave the right message. (Once again, Hallmark fails to come through.)”

 

Smoker snorted at the message, and put it down carefully before reaching for the smallest package.

 

The crumpled newspaper proved to be concealing a small, somewhat moth eaten box, one that looked designed to hold jewelry. Puzzled, Smoker pried it open.

 

She would later deny that her jaw dropped open; she most certainly do anything cliché as gasp allowed, and put one hand over her lower lip. And she most CERTAINLY did not tear up like some overemotional little starlet in a romantic comedy. 

 

(Of course, Hunter would cheerfully interrupt to inform her that she in fact blubbered like a chubby kid who’d dropped his ice-cream cone, and would go on to describe how her face had gone all blotchy and red and really, Smoker, dude, you’re kinda goofy looking when you cry.

Only the fond smile on the little pest’s face prevented Smoker from completely losing her temper here.)

 

Inside the box was a pair of earrings; a pair of simple, but elegant, silver hooks, and from each one dangled a single blue teardrop shaped stone. Both stones were the exact shape and shade as the one on Smoker’s favorite necklace.

 

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there just staring at them before she became aware of another presence in the room. Smoker looked up, and saw a certain pesky stray grinning at her from under her ever-present kitty hood. The pest grinned even wider when she knew she had her taller friend’s attention. “So…I going by that goofy look on your face, I can assume I did good?”

 

Smoker swallowed hard and cleared her throat before speaking.

 

“Exactly how did you get in here without a key?”

 

“You forgot to lock your window last night. Which, hey, lucky…means I didn’t have to pick the lock. And maybe break one of the panes when it turned out that lock picking isn’t as easy as it looks.”

 

“Hmmph. Must be nice, being born with the complete inability to feel any kind of shame.” She put the earrings in as she spoke; she was pleasantly surprised by how comfortably they hung from her ears. Smoker normally hated dangly earrings…they were either too long, or too heavy, or constantly got tangled in her hair…but these worked, somehow. 

 

“It’s one of my many superpowers.” Said Hunter with a laugh. She had moved further into the room, and was peering at Smoker as she went. “Heee…alright, those actually look pretty good on you. Which is great, because you wouldn’t believe what I went through to find those things.”

 

“Knowing you, I’m probably lucky that it didn’t end with me having to bail you out…again.”

 

“Oh, you are never going to stop harping on about that, are you…”

 

“Nope. Never. You still owe me money.”

 

“And here I was hoping you’d forgotten than particular detail…”

 

And so they fell, naturally, into there usual round of comfortable not-quite-bickering, which somehow evolved into talks of dinner, which no matter what they decided to do for that, would be followed up by the next best thing to a homemade cake. And as she felt the slight weight of the first real birthday present she’d ever received since…well, since she broke it off with Juan, really…dangling from her ears, she allowed herself one small smile.

 

Maybe a birthday was worth a small celebration if it could be like this.

 

“Seriously, though, you didn’t break anything else to get in here, did you? Maybe I should get you a spare key if only to spare my deposit…”

 

“Hey, I paid you back for that AGES ago, so would you please just drop it already?”

 

Notes:  
-Not actually sure what kind of cake Smoker might like, so I just went with one of the first ones I could think of. If Zarla has an official answer on this one, I will go back and edit that in.

-Not sure how well I got Mousey's little "trying to help POOR LONELY PATHETIC SMOKER" thing down...I'm afraid I may have made it seem a little like she has a crush on her or something. AH, WELL, WHATEVER.

-I have had an Italian Cream cake that was...not quite as bad as what I describe in this fic, but it certainly had the same icing. It was actually for an office birthday party like this (well, except for the fact that the people working there are really very nice, and the atmosphere of the office in general is heck of a lot friendlier and buttloads less bureaucratic, so it was actually kind of fun. I just sometimes questioned the taste of the people picking the cakes.)

-Yes, I am aware of the irony of presenting Smoker as a bit of a pastry snob not long after she was shown to be a junk food aficionado who would happily live off of Twinkies if anyone let her.

**The image seen in this fic was drawn by Zarla as a response to this fic. I'm adding it here now because it make me happy. THANK YOU ZARLA.**


End file.
